back home for winter break

This holiday is coming to an end very soon! My main reasons for coming back has been fulfilled- meeting up with friends who are leaving for other continents of the world in september/august and spending time in my parents' shop. Of course there are the usual reasons- enjoying HOME and PENANG

my nephew kept asking me "when are you coming again to my house?" haihs, i'm just controlling myself not to cry...really?! there isn't a valid reason for me to cry right? i will still come back in December. It's just he is my favourite among all my nieces and nephews. Just gotta convince myself that there can never be holidays all year round.

 Everytime i come back home, i will have the thinking that maybe i should just come back to work after i graduate cos' malaysia is full of good food and i will have the comfort of home. But on another note, i feel i should at least work a few years in aussie(if i can find one) to get back the money, earn some reputable working experiences then only decide what's next.

Malaysia, Penang, to be exact,  is still very much my home.  I haven't develop much love for australia, i still can't really accept their drinking and party behaviour, hmmm, i have like less than 5 angmohs friends, hahha! speaking of that, i was told that one of my new neighbour is an angmoh, hope she's nice!(as in no party in kitchen with loud music) i always have international neighbours unlike my friend who got all singaporeans neighbours. should i look at it as a good or bad thing? hmm...

Semester results were up to my expectation, hope i can still maintain my self-discipline for the upcoming semester. Going back in 5 days time, ergh, back to cooking and handwashing, and STUDY!

no internet connection

After moving out from IH college on nov 24th, I've been staying at my sister's apartment( just the next building) till now. no cable or internet connection so i can only online for a limited time using my che's laptop..

I've been eating alot of home cooked food which means I've been cooking, washing the pots and plates, and do grocery shopping ALOT! of course i do all of these together with my sis =) cooking is fun, grocery shopping too but not the washing up part..hahahaha, but this i-don't-really-fancy chore comes along with the fun cooking, so i don't have much choice. i took quite alot of pictures of all the dishes we made, will blog about it when i get back. I've also compiled some food pictures but I'm no longer keen to blog about them for now.


2010 is coming to an end soon..time really flies this semester as compared to the first semester. Got back my semester results and I'm satisfied. hard work paid off! think i put in more effort this sem than the previous semester. wonders whether can i regain this kind of self-discipline again next year after having a long summer break..hmmm, okay that's kiasu-ism..hahahahha! i will get to celebrate CNY next year, woohoooo! remember this year, i came to Aussie on the night of the first day of CNY, damn sad case de. next year i will be in msia till CNY ends!


most of my friends are now back in their home countries for about 2 weeks already..so my only friend now is my che che, hahahha!


daddy and mummy will be coming over for che's graduation this Thursday! then they will go back msia with me on Sunday night =( but I'm looking forward to all the good food and meeting up with my beloved friends!!


That's all for now! *continues watching Wongfu on YouTube and checking out baking recipes*

Malaysia's Independence day

so tmr is Merdeka day, public holiday in Malaysia =) bet most of you will be using this day sleeping till 12noon ( i'll be doing that if i'm back home)

i'm not really a patriotic person so why am i even writing this post?! well, i have to voice out my opinion about something related to Hari Merdeka.

i have friends in Fb writing stuff like " sang Negaraku in adelaide, fell proud but sad" and "let's sing our national anthem together tmr"

And guess what they get for their replies? "why so patriotic? if you're so patriotic, you'll be studying in malaysia and not aussie." and "are you f***ing serious? scr*** malaysia."

i really don't understand why they need to make such mean comments. if you hate malaysia so much, that's your problem. Just shut your damn mouth or migrate to other country. you don't have to stop others from expressing their love for their country.

For me, malaysia has been a place where i had a memorable childhood and great high school years. nothing much to worry about. so, i really 'pandang rendah" on all those people, they make these comments without having the thought that malaysia has actually provided them with a safe and happy place to live for so many years already.

i guess people make such comments because they are associating it with the politics in malaysia.( as in they hate all the orang besar in malaysia's political world)

malaysia is really a nice country with all it's places of attractions ( the islands, highlands..) and rich culture. it would be a great place to live in if there is less corruption( which means we need a clean fresh government), more environmental-friendly( government policy and malaysian's mind set), and lower crime rate( again this depends on the government).

Malaysia is still where my HOME is......


to those who are reading this post, i hope you are not one the brainless people who makes the nasty comments.

malaysian food for you: my favourite roti canai!!

and roti tisu

my personal favourites are the ones from Goodall Food court in Penang

(opposite PCGHS high school)

the roti canai is so so yummy and the roti tisu with banana slices is SUPERB.

i will take a photo of it when i go back to penang and post it up!

the one-month long semester break

1st week: nothing much. i was getting all the necessary stuff for my Melbourne trip. went to sis's place every now and then

2nd week: off for a 4-day vacation in melbourne with Genny and Fay. trust me, it's not all fun when you're the one who had to make most of the decisions(okay maybe a lil' exaggerating) on where to go, what to eat, etc..will ramble about this trip soon together with lotza photos when i have my free 10GB internet quota.

3rd week: came back on July 8th from melbourne, flew back to HOME SWEET HOME the next night. the first place me and sis went to was our ahma and ah gong's place, we are very kuai grandchildren.=)  tried to take a nap in the evening but ended up crying in my bed. I MISS MY HOME SO MUCH. my bed, my room, my living room, my study table, my toilet, my sofa, my TV, almost everything in my house. daddy and mummy took us out for dinner every night, lunch at ahma's place everyday, these were the ordinary things we did everyday but I LOVE IT! only met up with jan, cw, ange, kp for this hols. shopped with sis in QB for 2 days consecutively so rushed for time as we're buying all the necessary stuff to bring back to Brissie. had a bad diarrhoea cos ate too much stuff that i have not been eating for 6 months. surprisingly, i didn't really have much cravings for all my fav food(this is so not me). i did not miss out on Astro. i was able to watch one whole series of Astro on demand in a week's time(by watching the beginning, not all the episodes in between, and the conclusion) the feeling of being HOME was just overwhelming. on sunday July 18th, flew back to Brissie =(. I'm glad i came home.

4th week: arrived brissie on monday morning. i was down with sore throat so i ate at sis's place. got to eat porridge =D during dinner, she cooked pork mee suah and again, out of nowhere, i was crying while eating. see la, this emo girl. jie was asking me " the mee suah tasted so bad is it?" LOL. i was touched that she took care of me when i'm sick,then luan luan think again, blah blah blah.. went out with my ex Hsc friends, wen zhen and wayne yi on wednesday for the first time, while my 3other IH buddies went to gold coast. i couldn't have the best of both worlds so i had to choose one. ate at jie's place for 3 days. on thurs, she flew to melbourne for her hospital placement =( no home cook food for a month. gg.  my emotions are quite stable for now, hopefully it will stay this way for a duration of time=) been going out with my IH people.

Highlight of the entire sem break: the 10 days in PENANG, spending time with my loved ones and being a couch potato watching astro =D

the END

32@The Mansion restaurant

Location: 32, Jalan Sultan Azlan Shah, Penang, Malaysia  (Just type the name of the restaurant using Google Earth and you will get the location)

Went there for Mummy's Birthday last December. i thought we have to wear like super formal since the facade of the mansion look so expensive. but i was wrong. You don't have to.

very nice interior and ambience. love the place we had our dinner.

can't really remember the exact names of the dishes though

fresh bouquet of flowers at the centre of every table

House Special Salad

-fresh greens with a soury sauce has a combination of lemon, lemongrass and other herbs

 

Chicken cutlets seasoned and coated with cheese served with fettucine(or linguine?) and tomato sauce

Fish with some kind of creamy sauce and pine nuts

BBQ Chicken and duck on sticks. the duck was not really cooked, don't really like it.

hot chocolate brownie cake with vanilla ice-cream topped with almond flakes

Freshly baked apple pie with a scoop of vanilla ice-cream

the side entrance

Other dishes not displayed:

Crab Bisque:

a very creamy soup with a very 'crabby' taste. suitable for those who love the very dense crab taste. very easily "jelak". The Wild Creamy Mushroom Soup suits most people.

Garlic Bread:

One of the nicest I've tasted so far

Mom's Codfish & Mussels with a type of sauce ( from the Chef's Recommendations Menu):

taste better than the fish with pine nuts

Homemade Brown sugar Ice-cream with coconut sauce:

Quite a refreshing dessert and it's the cheapest in the desserts section  =)

taste of all dishes was okay, not very very yummy. however i need to compliment on the presentation of the dishes(after all, it's fine dining mah) and the whole dining atmosphere.

tracia's redbox party and winter warmers

Tracia invited us to her early birthday at Redbox yesterday, so me fetched Kp and Simone. we were so late that tracia called us to aask where we were. simone answered the call for me and said in hokkien "lang eh Michelle driving la, ka ban" yaya, compared to mone i drive super slow =) kp said " lang pui('fei' in mandarin) tiao ki liao" LOL so funny wei...

reached there at 4.20 lidat coz i took some time finding for a parking lot and to do the reverse parking, with the expert ms Simone giving me advise "Look at your side, turn your steering to the left, nono, to the right, press the acceleratorm etc.."

so we went into our room at 5.30 coz we're waiting for Florence. go in for a while, the waiter came in and asked us to move to another room. all of us, each with our glasses walked to another room. the whole scenario was as if we were trying to escape from the cops in a nightclub*exaggerating*
moved into a much bigger room and started singing, it was kinda fun since we have not been to redbox for quite some time.

At around 8pm, the 4 of us(me, mone, kp, flo) went for dinner at Winter Warmers. the music was so loud and we started lip synced along with the music with mone taking a video of us. makan makan then we went to  gHotel to pee. me and kp were pulling the other two of them there cos' they're scared they might be shooed away by the guards. went to the ladies and started vaining inside. kp and mone are having all the pictures but belum upload yet. 

left Gurney at 10pm and it was so jammed right from the multi-storey carpark. kp n mone taught me how to cut queue. so here's a tip that mone gave me: Raise your hand as a gesture to ask permission from the driver of the lane you wish to go into and he will let u do it! it really WORKS =P

Chit chat the whole way back. dropped mone first at greenlane heights and should've headed back to greenlane but we(kp n i) got lost on our way back. we really have very POOR sense of direction man! we drove till the road to farlim then later have to made a U-turn at the batu lanchang skol punya entrance. oh boy...

~the END~

Iced peach tea from Winter Warmers. it was quite sweet and refreshing.

no pictures of our main dishes coz' it wasn't really good

P.S. people remember the lady Gaga's song? Mum Mum mum Mah..P-P-P-Poker face...

I HAD FUN YESTERDAY =)

Ocean Green Restaurant

Location: 48F, Jalan Sultan Ahmad Shah, 10050 Penang (It is hidden from the main road, behind the old Paramount Hotel)
Tel No: 04-2262681

Serves lunch and dinner but usually my family goes there for dinner..So what's nice there? Lotza yummy dishes.. sadly, i do not have great photography skills so i had to use pics from other websites along with some of my not-so-nice shots of the dishes. Of course we ate all those dishes on separate visits, not all at once....

Four Season

Shark's Fins Soup

Crab with Salted Egg ( the prawns with salted egg is recommended too)

Spring Chicken

Geoduck and 'Dong Gui" soup( along with some green veges, shitake mushrooms, tofu)

- We ate geoduck without knowing what it actually was, so i Googled and found that it was actually a type of clam..a gigantic one...the testure of the meat was chewy and frnakly i don't really like it..it's like a sort of exotic food to us but it was a nice try!! however, THUMbS UP for the soup, it was very very nice and fragrant!!!

Two Flavour Fish ( part of it was deep-fried and the other part was stir-fried)

 Cheese-baked Crab (my all-time favourite)

called "Siong Thong Heng Cai" in Hokkien...a type of vege with soup filled with dried scallops and sautéed garlic cloves)

Crab stir-fried with mihun ( the mihun has taken up all the sweetness of the crab, NICE! would be nicer if the mihun is a bit more moist)

Steamed Tapioca with Coconut milk ( it was yummy but we ate that once only, a few years back coz they don't serve this often)

Only 4 out of the 10 pics were taken by me due to my horrible photo-taking)
therefore, credits go to all these bloggers and websites:

@ Eileen Eu, my dear cousin who takes much much better shots than i do
@ Eileen's Mummy, my ah chim who blogs quite a lot about food
@ what2see. Best of Penang Food!
@ Life Thru the Lens

Bravo Italiana

Location: i-Avenue (01-01-11, Complex I-Avenue, Medan Kampung Relau 1, 11900 Bayan Lepas, Penang.)

serves great Italian food

that suits Malaysian taste buds

dishes worth your money

took only some pics of the dishes yesterday

to have a look at nicer pictures 

visit Steven Goh's Penang Food

Soup of The Day: Broccoli soup

Hawaiian Pizza RM29

it's different from the ones by Domino's and Pizza Hut..1000x yummier=)

Catch Carribean RM23

Salmon Simone RM28

it has a orange-flavoured sauce which was quite different from what i usually have

Ocean Catch Cleopatra RM22.80

this fish dish is the best compared to the other two above